Wong Fei-Hung

Wong Fei-hung (aka Huang Fei-hong) is one of the most revered folk heroes in China, particularly among residents of Guangdong Province and Hong Kong where he came to be immortalized on screen more often than any other historical figure in the world. Although he died long before his fame spread into the film arena and elsewhere, this figure has come to epitomize the ideal Chinese hero.

For the past 70 years, mostly fictional exploits of Wong Fei-hung and his top martial arts students have been retold in serialized novels, TV series and in over 100 martial arts films. Wong has been repeatedly portrayed by such illustrious screen-fighting legends as Kwan Tak-hing, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. While relatively little is known about his personal life, this celebrated kung fu expert and healer has become a symbol of Chinese pride and has left an indelible mark on Hong Kong cinema and the martial arts world.

“Every great civilization has its cultural heroes. America has Davy Crockett; the British have Robin Hood. The Chinese have Wong Fei-hung, master of the martial arts and healing.”

- Linn Haynes

In Chinese kung fu, one’s martial arts lineage is of nearly equal importance to one’s family lineage. The handing down of kung fu techniques from sifu (teacher) to student is of grave importance as many of the forms and techniques widely used today can often be traced back to a single figure. Such is the case for the Southern Fist technique which would become the basis for Wong Fei-hung’s Hung Kuen or Hung Fist style, a branch of Southern Shaolin kung fu.

Avid kung fu movie fans have likely seen at least one movie dealing with the destruction of the Southern Shaolin Temple. While the facts of this event and even the existence of the temple itself remain shrouded in myth, it is known that the Qing Dynasty began to look on the martial arts-trained monks of Shaolin as a potential threat and this forced many of the temple’s students to take their training underground.

Through years of rigorous and highly disciplined training these monks had become highly skilled in unarmed and armed combat. They had been recruited by emperors and warlords to fight invaders and Japanese pirates. In addition, they had for years trained emperors and generals in their fighting arts. Shaolin had long been seen as an ally of the government but during the Qing Dynasty, the temples became havens for rebels.

In the mid-1700s, the Manchu government reputedly sacked the Southern Shaolin Temple and the surviving monks and lay students scattered throughout Southern China, particularly in the Guangdong region. One such student of notable skill was Hung Hei-kwun who settled near the city of Guangzhou and began teaching martial arts. His most successful student was Luk Ah-choy. Luk, himself a monk handed down his skills to Wong Tai. Wong Tai handed down his knowledge to his son, Wong Kai-ying. Wong Kai-ying became the father of Wong Fei-hung and in due time passed on what had become the family’s martial arts to his son.

Wong’s father was himself a folk hero of considerable distinction. He was a member of the Ten Tigers of Guangdong, all martial descendents of the Southern Shaolin Temple. Although it is unlikely that they interacted with each other much, if at all, the Ten Tigers of Guangdong were reputed to be the greatest fighters among their generation in Southern China. Like Wong Fei-hung, their exploits became the subject of popular stories.

Wong Fei-hung was born in 1847 at the end of the Qing Dynasty, by some accounts in Foshan, a city within Guangdong Province which borders Hong Kong in Southeast China. According to an alternate legend, his father would not teach Fei-hung martial arts for fear that it might endanger his life. Still desiring to learn, Fei-hung purportedly took lessons from his father’s master. More likely, Wong learned directly from his father.

The young Fei-hung was known to travel frequently with his father and perform kung fu in the streets for money, as seen in the 1993 kung fu movie IRON MONKEY. As a young adult, he took on the responsibility of becoming a martial arts instructor to the 5th Regiment of the Cantonese army as well as the Guangzhou Civilian Militia. He became quite involved with the local government after having trained two generals and becoming the assistant to the governor of the Fujian province.

Much of the political turmoil surrounding Wong as fictionally depicted in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA and its sequels centered on a popular uprising where the people of Fujian demanded that the governor be appointed head of a new democratic state. Wong was to become the commander-in-chief. This riot was suppressed by thousands of government troops. This put an end to Wong’s political career as he fled to Guangzhou. There, Wong opened an herbal medicine shop called “Po Chi Lam” and took on a number of martial arts students.

Wong was married four times and endured the loss of his first three wives to illnesses. His fourth wife, Mok Kwai-lan was only a teenager when she married the elderly Wong. He lived to the age of 77 and died in 1924. This was not long after Po Chi Lam was burned down during the Guangzhou Merchant Corps Rebellion.

As a martial artist, Wong Fei-hung was famed for his skill in Hung Kuen. Early films depicted Wong performing what became signature forms such as the Iron Wire Fist, Five Forms Fist, Vanquishing Fist, and the Shadowless or No-Shadow Kick. Wong was also known to have excelled at the traditional Southern Chinese art of Lion Dancing. In Guangzhou, he was known as the “King of the Lions,” a title borrowed for one of the many Cantonese movies made about him.

Wong had a number of students to pass on his martial arts training. Notable disciples included Leung Foon, Ling Wan-kai, Chan Tin-biu, and Lam Sai-wing (aka Butcher Wing). While Wong spent little time in Hong Kong during his life, possibly as a result of killing a man in a street fight, his students set up academies in Hong Kong, the most famous run by Lam Sai-wing who also published several widely distributed fist form manuals. Lam had a number of students in Hong Kong, one of them was Lau Cham, father of future legendary kung fu moviemaker Lau Kar-leung and a kung fu consultant on the initial Wong Fei-hung films.

“In the beginning, we had to really fight with real kung fu. That’s how we shot WONG FEI-HUNG.”

- Lau Kar-leung

It wasn’t until a decade after his death that Wong Fei-hung’s legend began to seep into popular culture with the serialized publication of the Legend of Wong Fei-hung, authored by Chu Yu-chai, another one of Lam Sai-wing’s students. The topic of this fictional account, printed in local newspapers, propelled Wong Fei-hung’s posthumous fame to mythic proportions with heroic tales embellished by the author’s imagination.

It is suggested by Hong Kong film critic Po Fung that Chu’s writing was highly flawed by literary standards. It typically put Wong Fei-hung into crude plots involving simple challenges against an endless assortment of villains. Po unflatteringly describes the stories as repetitive and boring and reserves praise only for Chu’s authentic depiction of Guangdong customs. Of more noteworthy importance in its relevance to the Wong Fei-hung legend is Chu’s worldly and aggressive depiction of the hero which includes references to smoking opium and being a combative youth. In subsequent years, this rugged persona would gradually be replaced by the more idealistic and Confucian image depicted on screen.

The first feature film concerning the exploits of Wong Fei-hung appeared in 1949 and created a sensation that lasted for over a decade. THE STORY OF WONG FEI-HUNG: PART ONE was director Wu Pang’s adaptation of a radio drama, itself based on Chu Yu-chai’s novel. Chu was a consultant on the film, as was Wong Fei-hung’s son Hon-hei and his surviving wife Mok Kwai-lan. Mok also played a fighting role in PART THREE.

Cast in the starring role was a 44-year-old, steely-eyed Chinese opera performer named Kwan Tak-hing who had earlier toured China in support of the war movement against Japan during World War II. With morale still low in Hong Kong following the end of Japanese occupation, Kwan’s portrayal of a famed kung fu hero proudly fighting against challengers with realistic techniques must have struck a chord with audiences. Not only did Wu Pang direct three close-knit sequels but he went on to film over 50 more serial features through 1961 with Kwan in the lead. Nearly half were released in 1956 alone during an unprecedented peak for a film franchise.

The Wong Fei-hung films began during a surge in martial arts movie production in Hong Kong after Word War II and were virtually the only films of their kind to survive a genre decline in the early ’50s. This could be partly attributed to the success of their stars. Kwan was a gifted performer with tremendous presence who grew to be nearly as legendary as the character he portrayed so often. In addition to substantial acting and opera experience, Kwan was skilled in White Crane kung fu and managed to adapt it with the aid of the Lau family to fill in for Wong Fei-hung’s Hung Kuen techniques. Playing opposite Kwan in the majority of the Wong Fei-hung films was Sek Kin, another screen legend, trained in several northern kung fu disciplines. Sek was always defeated by Wong and yet generally lost graciously, thus making him just as popular among audiences. Sek would eventually gain worldwide fame in 1973 when starred as the villainous Mr. Han in ENTER THE DRAGON.

In the first four Wong Fei-hung films, great attention was paid to realistic action choreography and stunt work that set a new standard for its time, where previously Shanghai and Hong Kong martial arts cinema had been dominated by fantasy wuxia conventions. Takes were very long and stunt actors were required to come up with long sets of sparring routines, many of them improvised on the spot. A high volume of Wong Fei-hung films in a short amount of time provided the perfect test bed for the martial artists, Cantonese opera performers and stuntmen and women working on the series. In these films we can find the roots of what would become the kung fu movie genre leading up to as far as Jet Li’s FEARLESS. It was on the set of these early kung fu films that future martial arts action directing masters Lau Kar-leung and Yuen Wo-ping learned their craft.

Even while Lau Kar-leung and his cohorts honed their skills behind and in front of the camera for what would become the foundation for the ’70s martial arts boom, the emphasis on shooting quality action scenes gradually decreased as the speed of shoots increased to meet demand. Action choreography would not take its next evolutionary step until the late 1960s when director Chang Cheh teamed with some of the same stuntmen from the Wong Fei-hung series to produce cutting-edge action choreography for his slick Mandarin-language wuxia and kung fu films. By this point, the Wong Fei-hung series was fading into irrelevance despite a brief comeback from 1967 to 1970.

It could be argued that the downfall for the Wong Fei-hung series was its descent into Confucian morality. It was a Chinese-styled “Disneyfication” of of history and myth that, along with the increasingly stiff action choreography, would look increasingly out of step with edgier action film trends developing in the 1960s. Kwan Tak-hing’s depiction of Wong Fei-hung had evolved over the years to embrace the kind of high-minded virtuousness that was already widely reflected by heroes in the wuxia genre. Unlike his early depictions on screen, Wong was no longer the aggressive fighter quick to throttle his adversaries as described in Chu Yu-chai’s novel and depicted in the first few movies. Over time, the character became intertwined with the aging actor and it was increasingly difficult to tell the two apart, especially since the unembellished accounts of Wong Fei-hung’s real life had been almost completely consumed by the fictional accounts.

By the time that the original Wong Fei-hung series finally came to an end with the release of WONG FEI-HUNG: BRAVELY CRUSHING THE FIRE FORMATION in 1970, a total of 77 movies had been released with Kwan Tak-hing starring in all but three. Although Kwan and Sek would find opportunities to reprise their characters in supporting roles, their time as the bearers of the Wong Fei-hung legend had come to an end. In addition, Cantonese-language cinema was in decline and young audiences were itching for a new kind of action. The Wong Fei Hung series stuntmen were finally getting to unleash their full potential in the martial arts films of Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers. For the legend of Wong Fei-hung it was only a transitional state as the next generation took their turn at telling the story in a new way.

The influence of the early Wong Fei-hung movies on the kung fu boom of the 1970s cannot be understated. Many of the actors in the original series were parents or mentors of future kung fu movie legends like Bruce Lee, Yuen Wo-ping and Lau Kar-leung. Some would pass the torch by appearing alongside next generation stars. Kwan Tak-hing reprised his famous role in several new Wong Fei-hung films produced by Golden Harvest including THE SKYHAWK (1974), THE MAGNIFICENT BUTCHER (1980) and DREADNOUGHT 1981). Meanwhile, Sek Kin re-teamed with Wong Fei-hung series filmmaker Wong Fung by co-starring in RIVALS OF KUNG FU (1974).

Many of the supporting cast from the original series would turn up in new martial arts movies as well. Series regular Walter Tso made a comeback as an elder in many Shaw Brothers martial arts movies during the late 1970s and early ’80s. By far, the biggest comeback by an elder veteran of the Wong Fei-hung series was by none other than Yuen Clan patriarch Simon Yuen who was brought in by his son, Wo-ping to portray an iconic kung fu master for several films including the biggest Wong Fei-hung movie since Wu Pang’s 1949 serial premiere.

Jackie Chan’s breakout role in DRUNKEN MASTER (1978) was as a younger and more irresponsible Wong Fei-hung, re-tooled for a new generation of viewers. Unlike previous portrayals of Wong, Chan and director Yuen Wo-ping realized that rather than focus on the noble deeds of his later life, it would be more interesting to see how he might have developed into the legend with more of an irreverent twist in keeping with their sensibilities. Having created a unique action comedy formula in their previous film, SNAKE IN THE EAGLE’S SHADOW, Chan and Yuen brought physical slapstick humor Wong Fei-hung for the first time. Creating a story of a mischievous adolescent Fei-hung who must overcome his own faults proved to be a huge success and turned Chan into Hong Kong’s new martial arts superstar. Like Wu Pang’s 1949 film, the success of DRUNKEN MASTER led to a series of mostly inferior knockoffs. Jackie Chan, who was looking to break out of the period kung fu scene, would not revisit this character in a sequel until 1994.

Wong Fei-hung was featured in a variety of films of the classic kung fu era (1970-1985) with different actors taking on the mantle and virtually all of them had Yuen Wo-ping, Lau Kar-leung or Sammo Hung involved in one way or another. Talented filmmaker Ho Meng-hua had Yuen assist him in directing kung fu cinema’s greatest character actor, Ku Feng, in one of his few starring roles as Wong Fei-hung in Shaw Brothers’ THE MASTER OF KUNG FU (1973). In this film Ho took an unusual approach by putting Wong into a more realistic and gritty setting, likely influenced by the hard-biting, karate-styled martial arts action that followed in the wake of Bruce Lee’s THE BIG BOSS (1971) and Chang Cheh’s THE BOXER FROM SHANTUNG (1972). Yuen’s other Wong Fei-hung entries were DRUNKEN MASTER, DREADNAUGHT and THE MAGNIFICENT BUTCHER which was a rare collaboration with Sammo Hung who played Wong’s famous student Lam Sai-wing. In addition to this film, Hung co-starred and choreographed the action for THE SKYHAWK.

Working at Shaw Brothers, Lau Kar-leung was not to be outdone by his peers at Golden Harvest. He cast his emerging star protégé Gordon Liu as Wong Fei-hung in CHALLENGE OF THE MASTERS (1976). Lau followed this up in 1981 with MARTIAL CLUB where Liu again portrayed Wong. Of all the classic kung fu era Wong Fei-hung films, these two arguably stay closest to the moral-driven films of Kwan Tak-hing’s era. Also, as the only martial descendent of Wong Fei-hung who was directing films at the time, Lau had a unique opportunity to explore the intricacies of Hung Fist in ways that no other martial arts filmmaker could. Lau visited the topic of Wong Fei-hung only twice but repeatedly worked authentic Hung Kuen forms into the choreography of many of his films.

The 1970s saw the rise of television in Hong Kong as a major competitor to film and it was inevitable that the tales of Wong Fei-hung would find their way onto television sets. What no one could have predicted is that a TV series would ultimately have as much if not more impact on the future development of the Wong Fei-hung legend than any feature film or novelization. In 1976, Kwan Tak-hing portrayed Wong Fei-hung in a 13-part series for TVB. The series delved into the historical backdrop of Wong Fei-hung’s era in greater detail than any film had previously. It developed elements that would become a staple of not only future incarnations of the Wong Fei-hung legend but also a sizable number of loose spin offs. It was in this series that Wong Fei-hung was introduced to historically-inspired plots involving slave trading, opium smuggling and underground sects. It was from this broad historical perspective that filmmaker Tsui Hark approached the Wong Fei-hung legend with the highly ambitious “wire-fu” epic, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, a film that briefly rekindled the kung fu movie genre in the early 1990s amid an explosion of advanced, wire-enhanced stunt work.

Tsui Hark enjoyed a rare level of commercial and artistic success in Hong Kong as a director, producer and occasional actor. He first established himself as one of Hong Kong’s emerging New Wave directors with his debut, a horror-wuxia hybrid titled THE BUTTERFLY MURDERS (1979). Taking his experience in studying American film, his limitless imagination and his tireless devotion to the craft, Tsui began a career of redefining genres within the Hong Kong film industry. ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983) brought Hollywood special effects to Hong Kong, A BETTER TOMORROW (1986) created the heroic bloodshed craze and A CHINESE GHOST STORY revolutionized the classical Chinese ghost story. With success in just about every other film genre it was only a matter of time before Tsui turned his attention to the kung fu genre.

After the success of THE SWORDSMAN (1990), which revitalized the wuxia film, Tsui began work on an epic reworking of the Wong Fei-hung legend. This time, Wong would be portrayed neither as a Confucian master who uses martial arts only as a last resort or a comically naive bumpkin, but as an intense and commanding martial artist in his prime. Jet Li, a mainland Chinese actor and wushu champion was chosen over local talent to become this latest incarnation. Li, with his boyish looks and astounding wushu abilities had starred in several mainland-produced kung fu films promoting the new Shaolin Temple.

Tsui Hark’s ONCE UPON A TINE IN CHINA (OUATIC) premiered in 1991 and was a huge success. Jet Li went on to play the same character in three sequels. Vincent Zhao played Wong in the fourth installment.

The commercial success of this film franchise guaranteed that kung fu films would rule the box office for at least the first half of the decade as numerous period martial arts films appeared shortly after. Director and choreographer Yuen Wo-ping, who had helped to create the comic Wong Fei-hung in DRUNKEN MASTER, returned to the legend in 1993 with IRON MONKEY. Yuen went even further back to create a fictional account of an adolescent Fei-hung. The young Fei-hung was portrayed by Tsang Sze-man, a talented young girl who gave a surprisingly impressive performance. Visually, the highly-stylized film is a huge departure from the more authentic martial arts seen in the original film series. Yuen’s best wirework was on full display and created a fun, if purely fantastical representation of Fei-hung’s childhood.

One of the most entertaining films to feature Wong Fei-hung during this period was conceived by Jackie Chan as an answer to the excessive wire-enhanced kung fu seen in the films of Tsui Hark and Yuen Wo-ping. DRUNKEN MASTER 2 (1994) brought back Chan’s breakthrough 1978 role as a bungling drunkard who must rise above his faults to defeat the villain. Although past his physical prime, Chan gave the performance of a lifetime in this film which featured more authentic kung fu without the use of wirework to give the martial arts a superhuman quality. Like Chan’s previous film, DRUNKEN MASTER 2 used Wong’s name but made little effort to accurately recreate the man or what is known of his life. The film also provided a historic teaming of Jackie Chan with Lau Kar-leung, although it was short-lived. Creative differences compelled Lau to leave the production early and tackle DRUNKEN MASTER 3. This was a sequel in name only and a poor one at that.

Since the release of DRUNKEN MASTER 2, Hong Kong’s film industry has shrunk and kung fu movie production has gone into indefinite hibernation apart from the occasional genre work of Yuen Wo-ping. Wong Fei-hung has not been seen on the big screen in nearly a decade, apart from Sammo Hung’s East-meets-West actioner ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA and his brief and simplified portrayal of Wong Fei-hung in Disney’s AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. In Chinese territories, kung fu on television remains popular and several Wong Fei-hung series have aired such as TVB’s WONG FEI-HUNG: MASTER OF KUNG FU (2004).

As entertaining as many of the existing Wong Fei-hung films may be, none can claim to be a definitive filmic depiction. Each has its own strengths. Tsui Hark’s OUATIC series is the best-rounded in terms of story development and provides an excellent starting point. However, its martial arts action is dominated by contemporary wushu and extensive wirework that falls far from Wong Fei-hung’s Hung Kuen skills and its initial depiction in the films of Kwan Tak-hing. Jackie Chan’s DRUNKEN MASTER films are genre masterpieces but awful representations of Wong Fei-hung. Lau Kar-leung’s two films, CHALLENGE OF THE MASTERS and MARTIAL CLUB, are closer in spirit to the original film series but they also share the same simplistic plotting. They do possess some of the best Hung Fist-inspired choreography of any of the Wong Fei-hung films, although not as good as some of Lau’s other films.

Audiences can find parodies of the original Wong Fei-hung legend in a number of Hong Kong films. From the maniacal mind of Wong Jing, LAST HERO IN CHINA is a complete parody of Wong Fei-hung as depicted in Tsui Hark’s OUTIC. It’s made funnier by having Jet Li lampoon his own previous performance. Kwan Tak-hing briefly reprised his role in ACES GO PLACES IV while Sek Kin participated in a humorous spoof of the original series in Sammo Hung’s THE MILLIONAIRE’S EXPRESS. Stephen Chow even paid tribute to the original series in ROYAL TRAMP where he and an opponent mimic the distinctive poses Kwan and Sek would assume when facing each other.

This all proves that the legend of Wong Fei-hung, in all of its states, has become as much of an integral part of popular culture in Southeast China as wuxia novels and Bruce Lee. Thanks to home video and the internet, the popularity of Wong Fei-hung has grown even more throughout the world.

Whether fact or fiction, Wong Fei-hung is remembered as a Chinese patriot, a healer, a philosopher, and a superb martial artist who stood for the rights of the oppressed within a country long plagued with corrupt leadership and foreign invasion. Yet the more we see Wong portrayed in film, the less we really know the man. While still hugely popular in China, little serious effort has been made in film or fiction to chronicle an accurate version of his little-known life. Portrayed as a budding martial artist, an immature young adult, an austere patriot, or as a Confucian father figure, the real Wong Fei-hung continues to elude us. Perhaps this is not so important. Like all great heroes of history, the legend of Wong Fei-hung will undoubtedly continue to inspire and entertain people around the world for years to come.

The Music of Wong Fei-hung

Over the years, Wong Fei-hung has become closely associated with a distinctive theme song. Wu Pang’s original series frequently used an old folk tune titled “On the General’s Order.” The late composer James Wong rearranged this music with new lyrics for Tsui Hark’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. The result was a powerful ballad titled “A Man of Determination” (aka “A Man Should Better Himself”), originally sung by artist George Lam and later by action star and singer Jackie Chan for the closing credits to OUATIC 2.

“A Man of Determination” (WONG FEI-HUNG theme song / nan er dang zi qiang) Written by James Wong and originally performed by George Lam Chinese lyrics from Justsomelyrics.com English translation from Cantonese.sheik.co.uk

With a defiant spirit, I sneer at all adversity. With a spirit burning hotter than the red hot sunlight, With daring forged of iron, with character forged in steel, With the broadest aspirations, with a far-sighted vision, I vow to push myself to become a true hero.

To become a great hero, each day you have to push yourself: A man’s spirit should burn brighter than the red hot sun.

I’ll gather the power of the seas and the skies, I’ll rend the heavens, and split open the earth, Just so I can seize upon my dreams.

Gaze upon the lofty, azure waves and the vast blue skies: That is me, the man of determination.

Step confidently and stand boldly, like pillars of the nation! Become true heroes! Use my example to ignite a hundred souls, shining forth like a thousand points of light.

To be a true hero, your soul and your courage must burn, burn brighter than the red hot sun.

Hello, do you know the location of Wong Fei Hong’s grave?. thanks, Nicholas.

wayman wong

Mark, Great article. To your knowledge, is there a website that has the old Wong FeiHung movies. I looking for the 1949 movies through the 1970s

thanks wayman

http://www.kungfucinema.com/forums/member.php?u=1 Mark Pollard

wayman, a few WONG FEI HUNG movies from the original film series have been sold through Yesasia.com as I recall. Many of them unfortunately no longer exist, at least complete. I don’t know if any are still available on home video, nor if any have English subtitles. Most of the black and white-era Hong Kong movies that I have seen reissued end up on VCD without English subs. They’re still fun to watch though.